July 29- Battle of Kleidion

A day for decisive battles it seems.

The 29 July 1014 was the day Basil II (976-1025) �Bulgaroktonos� (the �Bulgar-Slayer�) earned his famous nickname. In the battle of Kleidion the Byzantine Emperor defeated the West-Bulgar Tsar Samuel, and in the aftermath 14.000 Bulgar soldiers were blinded at the orders of Basil.


The battle itself was the climax and the virtual end of decades of Byzantine struggling against the Bulgarian Kingdoms that more than once had threatened the very existence of the Byzantine Empire. (See July 26). After years of, eventually successful, campaigning in the East, after 1002 Basil II was finally in a position to dedicate his entire efforts on Samuel�s Empire. The Eastern Bulgarian Empire had been subjugated by John Tzimisces (969-976), but the Western Bulgars with their capital Ochrid had successfully defended their independence. Although in years of continuous warfare Basil II had recaptured most of the former Byzantine possessions on the Balkans from Samuel, by 1014 he still hadn�t been able to deal the final blow.
This was about to change.
At the end of July 1014 the two armies met in a gorge near the river Struma , on the border of today�s Greece and Bulgaria, where the Bulgar army had erected a fortified camp, thus blocking the Byzantines� progress.
During the night from 28th to the 29th a small contingent of Byzantine troops under the command of General Nikephoros Xiphias managed to go around the camp and thus to get behind Bulgar lines.
On the morning of the 29 July the Byzantines attacked the fortifications from both sides.
The surprised Bulgars weren�t able to defend both ends, panic broke out and Samuel�s army began to flee, and those who didn�t get slaughtered in the rather one-sided battle, were captured and an even worse fate than death awaited them.
Basil inflicted a terrible revenge on the Bulgars, out of every hundred men,ninety-nine were blinded and the one was left with a single eye to lead his comrades back to their Tsar.
When the 14.000 blinded soldiers reached the castle of Prespa , where the Tsar resided, Samuel fell into a shock at their sight and died a couple of days later.
Although the Bulgars resisted for a few more years, Basil�s shock treatment eventually had the desired effect, and the last remnants of the West-Bulgar Empire surrendered beaten and demoralized in February 1018, and the former Empire of Tsar Samuel became once again a Byzantine province.

It�s shame that Basil II is mainly remembered today for his brutal treatment of the Bulgar army after the battle of Kleidion. He was undoubtedly one of the great Byzantine Emperors, a hardworking and diligent servant of the Empire, which under his reign restored its position as the predominant force in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Balkans. Under Basil�s reign the Empire reached heights that it hadn�t witnessed since the days of Justinian, and although Basil�s realm never extended as far as Justinian�s, it was arguably stronger, concentrating on the Byzantine heartlands in the East.

Who knows what might have happened if Basil�s successors had been equally strong, able and decisive than the great man, but that wasn�t to be.
No better words can close a chapter on Basil II than J.J.Norwich�s:
�He died on the 15 December (1025), by the 16th, the decline had already begun.�



But possibly a even more decisive battle took place on the 29 July 1588, when the English fleet defeated the Spanish Armada in the battle of Gravelines.
The Armada was part of Phillip II of Spain�s (1527-1598) plan of an invasion of England that during the reign of Queen Elisabeth I (1533-1603) had become Spain�s greatest rival in Europe and was endangering the Spanish trade in the colonies of the Americas.
Furthermore, Phillip believed to be destined to restore England to Catholicism which Elisabeth�s father Henry VIII had abandoned to install the Anglican Church.
The Spanish Armada, 130 ships and 27000 men, under the command of Admiral Medina Sidonia (groovy name!) had assembled in the English Channel near the small French town of Gravelines. On the 29 July the English fleet under Admiral (and pirate) Francis Drake attacked and engaged the Spanish in a day long naval battle. Although the outcome was somewhat inconclusive, the Armada began its retreat the day after, around the West coast of Scotland and Ireland, and half of it vanquished in the rough seas of the North Atlantic.
The last years of Phillip�s reign were the begin of Spain�s long decline as a world power, and of England�s ascent, saved from the Spanish invasion, it began to become the world�s leading colonial and trade power.

What else happened on this very day?
My personal highlights:

1848 - In Tipperary, Ireland , during the �Potato famine� an unsuccessful nationalist revolt against British rule is put-down by police. (The Irish carried on nevertheless, and finally laid down their weapons yesterday, July 29, 2005)

1899 - The First Hague Convention, regulating the laws of International disputes and warfare, is signed.( and as all the following ones, largely ignored)

Full list:

Wikipedia

Edited by Komnenos

 

Events

1954 - The Fellowship of the Ring, the first part of The Lord of the Rings, is published in the UK

1981 - Lady Diana Spencer marries Charles, Prince of Wales.

Births

1883 - Benito Mussolini, Italian dictator (d. 1945)     ( not a nice day for Italians )

Deaths

1890 - Vincent van Gogh, Dutch painter (b. 1853)

 

 

And before the day is over, a very sad event also happened on this day sixty-five years ago.

1940. - 29th of July: Three black cars of Western origin enter a farm in Estonia. The cars contain NKVD agents, one of them an Estonian (atleast by name). He is a local chief of the terror organization or of the sort. They enter the house, where with his family resides the President ( acctual title - Riigivanem - state elder) of Estonia - Konstantin P�ts. A man who came to power with a bloodless coup in 1934. and installed a moderate authoritarian state. The president had been offered the possiblity to flee from the country and offer asylum. Also to form a new government with juridical right on foreign soil. Three known governments are known to have done this - the German, Swedish, American. The president stayed on his home soil. Although, the president had ordered his personal yacht to sail from Tallinn to Loksa without him on board, and it seems to have been for the reason to see, if mobility is still possible with the Soviets swarming across the land. Alas, the yacht was caught, the captain (a proud man who had supressed a communist uprising during the war of independence) was brought to Russia, Leningrad i think, and was executed. 

The family is taken from their home farm to Narva (Narew) train station. The son of Konstantin P�ts, Mati P�ts remembers that there was no perron so he was thrown onto the train. In a presidential (not an animal wagon) the P�ts family crosses the border of Soviet Russia.

President P�ts dies in 1956. in a psychiatric hospital. 

 

Edited by Kalevipoeg